"While it doesn’t feel good to make someone look like a fool to their colleagues and the public, it can be useful to use such theatrical tactics to get your message across when other less dramatic methods are ignored."
Friend of the show Ben Radford states, "I think that hoaxing to make a point might be useful in some cases, but people don’t like to be made fools of.”
Skeptic Karen Stollznow mentions the Project Alpha and Carlos hoaxes, "describing them as “social experiments” which “reveal human behavior under natural conditions.” She also reminds us that these orchestrated hoaxes were not intended for personal gain but ultimately for the public good, to prompt critical thinking."
The author concludes:
"Skeptical hoaxers have repeatedly remarked how sad or disappointed they were that the hoaxee did not discover the ruse! Had the hoaxers been caught, it would have been some vindication that the hoaxed party was not nearly as naïve and credulous as was assumed. Ultimately, the skeptical hoax culminates in the act of exposing the game. That is a key to concluding that these skeptic hoaxes are appreciably different than other kinds of hoaxes."
The Deliberate Skeptical Hoax | Doubtful Newsblog
I've got to say, Randi and other skeptics never seem too sad to me when they recount their exploits. In fact, they seem to take great joy in letting folks know how naive their victims were. I wonder if some skeptics have a deep need to let people know how intellectually superior they are to the "believers".
Are skeptics justified when they hoax researchers and the public? 
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